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Finishing the shop

Finally putting a floor in the shop. So the bus will be on a two or three week hold.

My brother and I built a 42’x60’ shop at his house (2 miles from mine) five years ago for our business. We are renting a 10,000 sqft warehouse now for the business 20 miles away and we finally get to turn the pole barn into a shop at his house.
We spent the last two week moving/ throwing away all the junk we collected the last 5 years (from flipping houses). We have a central boiler wood stove next to the shop. So we are putting floor heat in the concrete.

This weekend being the weather was good in Illinois we dug down 18 inches all around the walls to start putting down the insulation. We also put the floor drains and plumbing for a sink in.
Next weekend we will finish the grade and put the insulation on the ground. And start laying out the floor heat.

And the weekend after pouring the concrete if the weather works with us.

When the concrete gets done one of our friends has a business to blow in foam insulations so that will be done. It is awesome because they can spray it right to the tin walls and ceiling. than we will just cover the lower 8' or so with plywood or tin.

A lot of people around us ran the boiler water right into the floor. and it makes there boiler burn through the wood. this is because the boiler is trying to keep the water at 180 degrees and the floor system you want around 110 degrees at the highest.

So we are thinking of using either a 50 gallon water heater or 50 gallon tank with a heat exchanger in it. to keep the systems separate. Last case would be trying to get a plate exchanger. Just wondering what other people used and how it work.

A lot of people in our area been complaining about there system either cost to much to operate (uses to much wood or gas) Or it does not heat very well. I look at a lot of there systems they use 1/2 insulation under the floor and they do not insulate around the out side edge of the concrete.

we are using 2" insulation under and around the concrete. My brother is planning on staying at this house the rest of his life so he wants it done right the first time. All the HVAC shops and suppliers are saying we are doing it right but none of them can show us a example this way.

my cousin has radiant floor heat in their shop. commercial building split into 2 spaces guessing 20k in size. I was lucky enough to get to store the boat there last winter to do the stereo/ballast upgrades and it was very nice. they keep the temp set at 50 deg. comfortable enough to work in but not cost a fortune in heating. the building is set up with overhead gas heaters for the bad days but I never heard them run. the heated concrete did a great job keeping it warm.

I can ask them how they are running it if you like but I would bet that many different setups work well. insulating the rest of the space would be the key to keeping the space warm and doing it efficiently.

Well we got back to working on the floor. Hope we pour it this Wednesday. All we have left is cut down drain pipes and install the floor drains. We got busy on a couple paying jobs so this got put on hold.